Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 11:56 am Post subject:
Code of ethics - for media hut
Subject description: About us voxels/shp/3d makers (A how to act here) (not sure if this is the right place)

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Hi people!

For those who don't know me, I am Dubzac, one of the many modders / graphic artists.

Graphics

Today I just want to point out some things that we voxels/shp/3d modelers even members as old as me are not experts, try to understand, we are human beings, and no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes. Some people have better skill than others, no need to put them down.

Look, people.
We don't make graphics out of vanity or ego, we only make them with love for C&C. That's why many of you came here as well to mod. Suggestions, constructive critic and improvements are welcome, so don't be afraid we listen because we want our work to be improved, downloaded and used.

Modders, why are we like this?

Some mod owners like me will gladly give some assets. Some members will give too if you provide us credit and you ask politely for permission, if we say yes you can use, but credit us modders because we work so hard to get mods for you to play.
Some of us are selfish for reason of being unique or just to be vain, but that is not wrong, we just want to protect ourselves because modders doesn't want to have our assets ripped to another mod without permission.

Debrief

Thank you for listening and I hope you can understand. With this "ethics" we can work better to keep PPM alive and kicking, we love C&C and I hope you do too, enjoy your modding and good day to you.

@PPM:

Please be nice in your reply, I just want people to be safe here and I'm sure you want that too at the moment it's not a safe place to be and we have lost many, over the years of flaming and other nonsense, not just to me, but young members and inexperienced members and even some old members.

**** I love PPM, lets do the right thing****_________________Link to a document to see what mods i have and/or working on or working with
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EDIT: You can call me an ass, because I added some of my ideas for the text too.

by all means DonutArnold. add what you wish.
I just want peace and happiness for all our people here at PPm, so we don't want lose any more members. We are few now, and its so upsetting. _________________Link to a document to see what mods i have and/or working on or working with
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Some of us are selfish for reason of being unique or just to be vain, but that is not wrong, we just want to protect ourselves because modders doesn't want to have our assets ripped to another mod without permission.

Perhaps high-quality assets take long enough to make that they aren't seen published too often? Another reason is that most modders make assets for a mod, not straight for public use. It's also very rare that public assets fit together as they are made by various people._________________QUICK_EDIT

I must say that just about everyone who has posted replies to my efforts at creating voxels has been supportive and there suggestions have been constructive.
I hope people can see some improvement in what I've done and if you do, then you can take some credit because it was your help and suggestions that allowed and enabled me to move forwards.

Well, releasing as public assets can never do any harm. The only "benefit" your mod gets by not releasing it is to be the only one who has it, which is to me kind of poiintless because nobody will use your mod *just* because others are not allowed to use the same voxels/SHP_________________QUICK_EDIT

Well, releasing as public assets can never do any harm. The only "benefit" your mod gets by not releasing it is to be the only one who has it, which is to me kind of poiintless because nobody will use your mod *just* because others are not allowed to use the same voxels/SHP

I don't want to see my TI buildings mixed with low quality stuff and maybe even implemented wrong with missing anims, wrong palettes and other newbie mistakes.
If you would see mod exclusive stuff in other mods as well, this can throw a bad light on the mod for which these assets were actually made for.
e.g.
Player downloads ripped assets mod and says "bah, what bad implemented buildings with stupid functionality." player looks on TI screenshots "oh look, TI has the same buildings. Obviously the mod can't be that good, because that noob mod i just tested was crap too"

Yeah, games might as well all share the same resources and look identical.

At the contrary - the less resources are shared, the most repeated they get. Therefor by releasing more you make sure there's a lot more variety and not a few public assets that are always the same.

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I don't want to see my TI buildings mixed with low quality stuff

They are already mised with the much lower res original TS buildings even in your mod, so I don't see quite tthe problem.

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Player downloads ripped assets mod and says "bah, what bad implemented buildings with stupid functionality." player looks on TI screenshots "oh look, TI has the same buildings. Obviously the mod can't be that good, because that noob mod i just tested was crap too"

Thus there is a very good point in having mod exclusive stuff.

Nobody would think that *facepalm*, besides the "noob" would have to point out you were the original maker, thus they will know theirs is the imitation and it would be obvious he didn't know how to do it.

Also, the easier solution is that if you want it to always look good, release it with the art code and such.

* * *

I am not saying anyone should be *forced* to do it, just that it is the most logical and coherent form to do it.
Besides, many mods have died and are never used, and they have assets never released to the public that could be of great potential for others. But no._________________QUICK_EDIT

Not sure what mods have died that have retained their great assets. The big mods with unique stuff were mostly released, therefore never dead.

Personally I would much rather play a mod that is unique and has built a coherent new game world than simply borrowed from others. I really couldn't care less about the countless shitty mods out there that have no assets or creativity, and I'm one of those modders. I'd rather have nothing myself and have the unique cool mods than have access to all the assets ever made. If all mods look the same there's literally no point in continuing this hobby._________________

They are already mised with the much lower res original TS buildings even in your mod, so I don't see quite the problem.

You have seen the "Beta" in the TI releases? It means the mod is not finish and we are still replacing the original stuff.

NimoStar wrote:

Also, the easier solution is that if you want it to always look good, release it with the art code and such.

I've always done that in the past on my public stuff.
But that didn't prevented mistakes done by the unexperienced modder. Yes, even a copy and paste is too hard for some.
Thus releasing every tiny information and really spoon feeding the modder is no guarantee for a correct implementation. It also doesn't prevents them to intentionally remove parts or change things, which in their eyes look good, but which are actually totally crap.

NimoStar wrote:

I am not saying anyone should be *forced* to do it, just that it is the most logical and coherent form to do it.

More logical would be, that more people learn to create assets. Most think it is super hard and thus don't even try it, while it's actually quite easy and only needs a bit work to learn how to do it. And then of course it needs a lot more work to actually create something and finish it.

If i see how i spend several weeks, even months on buildings like the TI temple and warfactory (considering i don't have more than 2 hours of free time each day), i really don't want to see these buildings in every ordinary cheap cobbled together mod.
A mod like TI would then be nothing special at all.

NimoStar wrote:

Besides, many mods have died and are never used, and they have assets never released to the public that could be of great potential for others. But no.

most died mods are archived here and most of them don't have any finished art. Most have concepts and half hearted attemps which might look good on a screenshot, but are completely useless when you want to implement them (e.g. missing damage frames, no buildup, no activeanims, no cameo, wrong lighting, bad texturing etc)

If there are actually finished things, then you can still ask Banshee for getting access to the mods staff forum and this way get your hands on the assets.

And finally, you don't need great new graphics for a great mod. See SuperJoe's TS Reform with its awesome new logics and ideas._________________SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings

I'd rather have nothing myself and have the unique cool mods than have access to all the assets ever made. If all mods look the same there's literally no point in continuing this hobby.

Man, do you even listen? . . .
Thjey will all look the same if there are not good public assets.

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Not sure what mods have died that have retained their great assets. The big mods with unique stuff were mostly released, therefore never dead.

Many mods with good assets were never released/finished, like Pre RA or RA1 in RA2 (?) if I'm not mistaken. Also even a release doesn't mean graphics can't be used then after; there are many forgotten mods.

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I've always done that in the past on my public stuff.
But that didn't prevented mistakes done by the unexperienced modder. Yes, even a copy and paste is too hard for some. #Tongue
Thus releasing every tiny information and really spoon feeding the modder is no guarantee for a correct implementation. It also doesn't prevents them to intentionally remove parts or change things, which in their eyes look good, but which are actually totally crap.

So... ¡? Then it's not your same buolding any more. Notghing prevents "bad taste". They do that with the vanilla buildings too...
And perhaps, even others like it even if you don't?

Also, if it bothers you that much, you can give permission to use but *not* to modify (even if that's whjat modding is all oabout), it's one of the possible licenses.

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i really don't want to see these buildings in every ordinary cheap cobbled together mod.
A mod like TI would then be nothing special at all.

So you are saying TI is then an ordinary cobbled toghether mod? that is not the case. Campaigns, gameplay, ambience, maps storyline, balance, changes, all those things make a mod greater than some .vxl or .shp file. You say so yourself.

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More logical would be, that more people learn to create assets. Most think it is super hard and thus don't even try it, while it's actually quite easy and only needs a bit work to learn how to do it. And then of course it needs a lot more work to actually create something and finish it.

I can create my own assets and sometimes do. But only where *necessary*¨. If you want a bomber, why having to do it taking perhaps weeks when you can search for one in few seconds?
If doing it would probably result in inferior quality and same concept even. There would be millions of horrible voxels and infantry just because.
Or worse still. People would not even be able to mod at all for not having the time to individually do anything and everything they want to use.

THere are people that are better at some things; some are apt for graphics but don't mod, some are at at coding but don't do the art.
By releasing code/art, everyone benefits to be able to do full mods.

Besides, releasing the stuff actually makes modding *more* competitive, since it is about who uses better the stuff and not who gets the most talented voxeler/coder and that's it. It improves the quality of *all* mods and generates incentive to always improve and take it a step further, instead of getting confy with already "locked" assets and gameplay.

Furthermore, we are all already using WW/EA stuiff without permission, so...

Those are my arguments for why people should *choose* to release the stuff. It's still their decision. (but anyways ripping and modifying is common even on unpermitted stuff, and complains tend to be useless either way so... even if I only use art on things I plan to release with permission and credit where info provided, that is not how it always goes)_________________QUICK_EDIT

Man, do you even listen? . . .
Thjey will all look the same if there are not good public assets.

Huh? They will all look the same if there are ANY public assets, regardless of quality. I'd simply rather play TI, Project Phantom or MO 3.0 which have unique assets and quality production value than 99% of other mods with neither.

NimoStar wrote:

Many mods with good assets were never released/finished, like Pre RA or RA1 in RA2 (?) if I'm not mistaken. Also even a release doesn't mean graphics can't be used then after; there are many forgotten mods.

PreRA2 was released around 2006 or so, most prerelease structures are out there to be used. The new stuff isn't but BrianPrime simply disappeared rather than announce the mod dead.

NimoStar wrote:

Besides, releasing the stuff actually makes modding *more* competitive, since it is about who uses better the stuff and not who gets the most talented voxeler/coder and that's it. It improves the quality of *all* mods and generates incentive to always improve and take it a step further, instead of getting confy with already "locked" assets and gameplay.

Surely it removes all competition since everyone has access to the 'best' stuff. There might as well be one mod.

My problem is most mods are just terrible and pointless. They suck in terms of gameplay, have no polish or creativity. They simply absorb decent assets like sponges into a frankenstein's monster of sewn together artwork and ideas. The few mods that are interesting and show creativity often find people who want to work on them and create the artwork, or for those who do work alone it gives them enough fame to ask others for donations. The best mods with unique assets are often made by people with enough motivation and vision to learn how to create the graphical side to support their ideas. There's no reason why all this effort should be wasted on the washed up masses of mods.

Yes we edit the original game assets because we rip them. People CAN rip mod assets too, it's just they're often looked down on by communities but it's the creators right to try and protect their creations as best as they can and not release them._________________

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